I realize Woody Allen wrote the play and the screenplay and I enjoy the outrageous nonsense of the comedies that were about to follow, but this one doesn't come off as much more than a routine family comedy of a sort that was common at the time -- "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation," "Take Her She's Mine," "Yours, Mine, and Ours," "Dear Brigitte." Others are more successful than this one.
Jackie Gleason is a caterer from Newark, New Jersey, who, along with this wife, Estelle Parsons, and his daughter, the slinky Joan Delaney, is trapped inside the American Embassy in Vulgaria because they are suspected of being spies.
There are some smiles but not too many. The acting ambassador, smitten by Delaney, begins to leave the room and stumbles onto a desk. (Gag.) The lines aren't as clever or witty as Allen's lines would be a few years later. Sheik to Gleason: "I am a man of few words." Gleason: "I'm a man of few words too -- drop dead." It looks a little like a weak imitation of Neil Simon. By the way, I've always wondered if Neil Simon and George F. Will were one and the same person. No? Have you ever seen both of them in the same room at the same time? Thought not.
Now, I hate to say this but it's at heart a Jewish movie that yearns to come out of the closet. The funniest lines are those given to Gleason at the beginning when he's trying to lay out the catering schedule for his partner -- the centerpiece for the Navy officer's party will be a boat made of sausages sailing on a sea of chopped liver, etc.
Gleason doesn't do it too well. It's not that he's Irish; it's that he brings his angry persona from the Honeymooners back to live. His irony is never understated. It's always threatening. But the role itself lacks humor to such an extent that maybe Walter Matthau couldn't breathe life into it.
I didn't find it insulting, just disappointing, uninspired, and ultimately dull.
Jackie Gleason is a caterer from Newark, New Jersey, who, along with this wife, Estelle Parsons, and his daughter, the slinky Joan Delaney, is trapped inside the American Embassy in Vulgaria because they are suspected of being spies.
There are some smiles but not too many. The acting ambassador, smitten by Delaney, begins to leave the room and stumbles onto a desk. (Gag.) The lines aren't as clever or witty as Allen's lines would be a few years later. Sheik to Gleason: "I am a man of few words." Gleason: "I'm a man of few words too -- drop dead." It looks a little like a weak imitation of Neil Simon. By the way, I've always wondered if Neil Simon and George F. Will were one and the same person. No? Have you ever seen both of them in the same room at the same time? Thought not.
Now, I hate to say this but it's at heart a Jewish movie that yearns to come out of the closet. The funniest lines are those given to Gleason at the beginning when he's trying to lay out the catering schedule for his partner -- the centerpiece for the Navy officer's party will be a boat made of sausages sailing on a sea of chopped liver, etc.
Gleason doesn't do it too well. It's not that he's Irish; it's that he brings his angry persona from the Honeymooners back to live. His irony is never understated. It's always threatening. But the role itself lacks humor to such an extent that maybe Walter Matthau couldn't breathe life into it.
I didn't find it insulting, just disappointing, uninspired, and ultimately dull.